Projects 1939 Ford Convertible Sedan Resurrection

Either 2 or 3 years ago there was a twin to your '39 at Louisville. I hope to see yours someplace someday.

 

The car is looking great. Since you mentioned the noise of the blower, I wanted to mention some info that might be useful to you in the future. A friend of mine has one of those little blowers on his 32 Roadster street rod. He complained that the blower sounded rattly at certain RPM's. He did some research and troubleshooting and it turned out that other people found the solution was to turn the blower faster, as the noise was bearing noise (but not worn bearings, just slow moving). He put a smaller pulley on the blower to turn it faster and the rattling completely went away, and it's still trouble-free nearly 10 years later.

 

Hi Joel, was it this one? If so mine is going to look quite similar. At least that is my intention.
You will have to travel to the Northwest to see my car ( at least while I own it). I just can't
physically drive it that far.

Thanks for that info on the blower pulley size. My top pulley is 2.85 ,the bottom is 6 inches. I read a post on FB from a guy running a 383 with a 3.05" /6" combo giving 2lb.s of boost. Changing the top pulley to 2.85" gave him 4 lbs.. I know I am talking boost and not noise. Apparently adding boost creates more heat which effects your required fuel and heat becomes an issue. I have a lot to learn about this blower. Apparently you can get pulleys from 2.57 to 3.25 I'll run this combo first and see what I get. I will post about this again in a few months.


We have been having some fun since getting the body shimmed and bolted down tight.
All of the doors fit and work well. I imagined getting those doors to work would take many
more weeks to accomplish than it did.

I'll try to cover some of the we have been working on.

My exhaust runs under the crossmember instead of through it . I probably should have
changed that when I put the new headers on. But I think there is plenty of ground clearance
as is. But... the exhaust pipe was too close to the X member for comfort,so I made this
little wood jig to support the bottom of the pipe. I was too busy holding pipe and operating
valves,steel plates and levers to take a picture of this bunch of moving pieces while flattening
out the top of the pipe with the hydraulic press. But it did the job.

On the p***enger side I needed to install this bung for the exhaust gas ****yzer.. Of
course I had to convert my Hobart back over to stainless wire to do the stainless welding.

It came out okay. It's mounted close to the starter with ample room to get a wrench on it
from over the fender or from underneath the car. This is not something that will be needed
often, but very helpful during initial tuning of the engine. With those two projects done
I was able to finalize the exhaust system.


So, Apparently Ford had this interesting method of securing their gas tanks. On the
p***enger side you have a bolt with a spring. This bolt goes into a captured nut that is
in a cage welded on the top of the tank flange. You are not suppose to tighten too tight.
You are then supposed to safety wire the bolt to a blister provided on the inside frame
rail.Of course the bolts I had for this fuel tank were not drilled. So that had drill the
bolts.

Drilling the bolt heads is not too technical but I find it hard to get them drill straight
through. But it'll do.


The drivers side has two bolts with no spring. I saw the frame blister provide for the
safety wire but didn't see the need to use it. Hopefully I wired these right so that they
will not allow the bolts to rotate.

So you might be asking why Ford used this system. I think it was done to allow the tank to
move a little bit as the frame flexed on the old rough roads of the day. We al know these
frames like to twist a little as that was part of the design. They may have been concerned
that if you bolted the tank tightly to the frame that the tanks welds would be prone to
cracking/failure. Hope it works.

More soon, Thanks for watching and commenting.

 

I’ve owned and studied 40 Fords for almost 45 years and never knew that the inner bulge was for safety wire. Huh.

 

As my Canadian Friends from Newfoundland would say..."whale oil beef hooked" (say it out loud, if you don't understand what that means)...I learned something new today...I had no idea that bulge was a wire tie capture for the tank!

Glad that your door aligning/shimming went quicker than expected...I too am bracing myself for that upcoming project. I'm also hoping the painting hasn't made my bolt holes move too much (I've thought about this phenomenon extensively while not sleeping at night, here's my theory...it's caused by the heat generated from all the solvents flashing off, this excites the steel molecules so much they begin to move and dance around, often with different partners and when they cool down again they may not be dancin' with the one that brung them, so they settle in with their new mate at the new location...that's my theory anyway...)!

 

THIS is why i just figured all ford bodies were shimmed on ***y line-learned new stuff today(that i'll never use)

 

I would love to get out your way sometime, Sam. My left knee is coming along pretty well, however I haven't tested it on the 11 in. clutch in the coupe yet. I hope to get more traveling in this summer.
I can't remember for sure but I think the car I saw had a black top . It was the first one I'd seen in person.

 

Hello Alchemy, I am not sure where I learned this first but it is mentioned in the Early ford V8 club books for 39 and 40 Fords.page 5-9 for the 39 and page 4-19 for the 40's The 40 book is the one that mentions the " bump outs". in the frame.

Hello Tim, I like your dancing theory. We did have to clean/ream every hole out during the mounting process and tap all threads. The settling with new partners showed up soon after we had all 4 doors aligned and functioning. We had to make some modifications to the brake lines to do.We jacked the front end of the car up and down several times during this process. Checking the doors alignment after this work, Don noticed the male dove tails no longer aligned perfectly with the strikers. My ***umption on that problems is that this will be a common/ongoing problem as the car is driven in the future. The door still works fine and aligns correctly when closed. I suppose that Ford used this Dove tail/ striker combination knowing that the dance partners would be constantly doing a square dancers Do-si- do .

My fibergl*** 39 convertible does the do-si-do in grand fashion. Sometimes I have to wait until I am on flat ground to close a door properly. If course( now that I think about it) it does not have the Ford dovetail system...

Hello patsurf, just log that info in the old noggin ,you never know when it might come in handy.

Hello Joel, I have been sharing info and parts with a couple of people back your way. They are in Indiana . One is building a Maroon CS , the other a black CS. The black one is coming along nicely and should be done soon. Hopefully you will see one of these cars out and about soon.

I am having some trouble deciding on the color for my top. I like the look of a black top but having driven a 39 convertible for several years with a dark blue top I can tell you it gets pretty hot under that top on a warm sunny day. Maybe that's why so many people think my 39 doesn't have a top since it is seldom up. I have seen a really nice white (I think it's vinyl) on his 39 CS but worry about keeping it clean. Then there is the tan harts cloth top you see in the recent picture. It looks pretty good but also has issues. Keeping them clean can't be easy and they tend to sag when they get wet. Well I still have a few months to make up my mind about the top.

Hope that knee keeps improving. I have heard that it is pretty hard to get down on your knees after that replacement surgery. Seems like it would a significant challenge to building and maintaining these old Fords.

A little more on the fuel tank:


This Drake fuel tank is far from traditional. It is stainless Steel, has more volume, a top vent,
and a provision an in tank fuel pump and return line. The floor clearance was a little tight
but it should work okay.

The frame came with this Earls fuel filter. We moved it from the side frame rail to
just in front of the fuel tank. The stainless mesh screen had been doing its job. The
screen needed a good cleaning before we moved it here. I think this will be a good area
to service the filter.

Boy everything looks pretty dusty under this car. It's kind of embarr***ing....